Black and White
by EmmaMary
Summary: In time it doesn’t hurt every second of everyday, and when she places her hand on the chunk of her that has been taken away, it does not come up bloody. Summer Centric. Tiny SS. SummerMarissa friendship. Spoilers up to 4.1


**Disclaimer- I own nothing.**

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She feels like a part of her is missing.

A chunk of her has been ripped out, the veins and pieces of flesh still splaying from the gapping hole unceremoniously.

She's still bleeding there; the wound is raw and painful. But she gulps down aspirin and throws on a shirt and no one can tell how badly it hurts or how much she just wants to scream and cry and be healed somehow.

But wounds as big as the one she is nursing take time to heal. More time than she is willing to give.

So she runs away, like everyone else. She is her mother's child.

Hoping, praying that new air will remedy her abrasion.

In time it doesn't hurt every second of everyday, and when she places her hand on the chunk of her that has been taken away, it does not come up bloody.

There is still a gapping opening their however, and she doesn't even realize how much she just wants to be whole again until a picture falls out of a book she's had since she was two, and for some reason had packed when she left for Brown.

It's her, with long dark pigtails, smiling up at the camera, her arm around another girl. The second girl is more timid, but smiling none the less.

Summer drops the picture and watches as it cascades to the floor, twirling and spinning in slow motion before, finally, falling face down on the old hard wood floor so the innocent eyes of two young friends can't be seen.

Her name chokes from her lips and it's the first time she's said it since she got here, maybe even longer. The long 'a' at the end turns into a coarse cry and Summer snaps her mouth closed before she has to deal with hearing the name for another second.

She doesn't know if she fainted or just fell asleep from the sheer exhaustion of the past months, but she wakes up eight hours later, her face somehow still wet with her tears.

Summer lets herself think for the first time in what feels like forever, today is a day of firsts for her, and something feels strangely right.

Her thoughts drift to the protests she engages in, but doesn't know why. The gist of Che leads her to Seth and before she knows it her thoughts glide in and out like colors in a sunset, and all she wants to do is see an Orange County sunset now; Summer hates metaphors.

She misses her morning class and her thoughts continue to drift in and out and spiral all around, going at the speed of light until abruptly stopping at Marissa.

Tears pool in her eyes before she finally lets them fall.

She wished Marissa hadn't died, obviously, and maybe Summer would still be here too.

Marissa pulled out that chunk of Summer and taken it to wherever she happened to be now. In so many ways that chuck was Summer. That chunk was everything Marissa effected.

And now that she was gone, all those things were gone too.

Because when I came right down to it, Summer was afraid to be Summer without Marissa. It was too scary facing those feeling that had once stood side by side with the life she had with Marissa in it. She didn't want just part of her old life, she wanted all of it. With Marissa gone it was impossible to regain her old life entirely, and since she couldn't do that, she knew she couldn't have any of it. Which meant no Newport, no Taylor, Ryan, Caitlin, or her father. That meant no Seth.

Summer could almost feel her gapping would grow until all that was left was this new Summer, who was as big as a Polly Pocket, and not the new bigger kind, but the old classic ones that could actually fit in your pocket.

She was a new person, who believed in animal rights and things that had never meant anything to her until now. She was as different from the old Summer as she could get, and that was her point all along.

Her goal was to fill the part she was missing with something so different that was there before, that way, Marissa couldn't come back and take it all away again.

She left for Newport a week later. Thanksgiving was never one of her favorite holidays, but she would go anyway, it was a time to see her family.

She left on bad terms with her feelings, not knowing what she wanted, or quite what she felt.

As she saw Seth there, waiting for her at the airport, she realized something.

She has missed him. Along with everyone else that had been a part of her life. But more than anything, she missed _herself._

Maybe she could have her old life back; maybe she could still be here with no Marissa. But she sure as hell was going to try.

Tears flowed from her eyes as she ran into Seth's arms, he was caught off guard and had to catch himself, along with her, but he did, he always did.

All she did was smile, for the first time in what felt like forever.

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**My editor is currently very very busy. So this is not edited. I'm looking for a backup one if anyone is interested, for my OC fics at least.**

**I'm not sure about this peice, but what the hell. **

**Review?**


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